On perhaps one of our most unexpectedly adventurous adventures, Ben and I decided to take the short ferry ride from Hiroshima across the Inland Sea to Miyajima, famous for the giant floating torii gate. According to the tourist propaganda, the water-locked torii is one of the three most photographed sites in Japan, so many readers are probably quite familiar with it. Of course we had to ham it up.
The tour guide maps and numerous signs on the island mentioned a deer park in the middle of the island, and had many dire warnings about deer eating peoples passports and JR rail passes (the unlimited access, $600 irreplaceable variety). How silly, we thought. Who would let a deer get at something that precious, and how much interest could a deer have in it anyway? Just don't go waving it around, right? As it turns out, as soon as we stepped off the ferry, we were almost tripping over deer, forget the park. At first it was cute, and I was playing Snow White and posing with them.
As we sat down by the pier for a quick picnic of onigiri (stuffed rice pockets), Ben and I started rustling the plastic wrap. Almost immediately, a doe that had been zonked out in the sun 20 meters away perked up, and resolutely started stalking towards us. Apparently the deer are extremely well conditioned by any *crinkle crinkle* noise, be it paper or plastic. I quickly shoved the onigiri in my mouth and ran away, stuffing the plastic evidence in my pocket. Ben got up and walked away, calmly munching, with the doe about 5 feet behind him, keeping pace. We soon learned to avoid crinkling any material, or at least glance fearfully around whenever we took a map out, lest we attract the wrong kind of attention. As we circled the tourist area, we saw maps and slips of paper being snatched out of peoples hands and happily devoured by the deceptively cute deer. Lost rail tickets, indeed!
Another major attraction on the island is a ropeway that takes visitors to a high look-out point, connecting to a short hike to an even higher peak, over 520 meters above the sea. Ben and I debated hiking up ourselves, but none of the maps gave us any scale of use; since my foot has been bothering me a bit, we decided to pay the ticket booth for a round-trip ropeway fare (at the time we felt a bit gouged, but we later found out it would have been over two hours of steep climbing to get up, so we didn't mind paying in the end.) So onto the gondola we go, oohing and aahing the views (and me somewhat successfully trying to ignore my fear of heights.)
At the top station, we see some warnings about monkeys. Don't look them in the eye, etc. But really, how many monkeys could there be? As it turns out, a lot. And they were only slightly more wary of people than the deer. Speaking of the deer, we figured out why the deer on the island are missing tufts of hair: monkeys apparently make poor barbers.
After we get over watching the monkeys, we start the 2 km trek to the highest point on the island. The hike took us through dense pine forests, and we stopped along the way to take in the incredible views. When we reached the top, we stood around in awe for a good half hour. We had a full panoramic view of the neighboring islands, and could even pick out the floating torii far below.
On the way back down, we passed by a shrine which claimed to be housing a flame that was over 1200 years old. It was smoldering fiercely, so we didn't see the actual fire, but breathed in the thick acrid smoke instead (gee, thanks). We also heard beautiful Buddhist chanting by the resident monk, which was interrupted by a phone call. I snapped some pictures of the odd scene (and the offering of cans of Dole fruit).
As we neared the ropeway station, violent rustling in the bushes signaled the onslaught of a wave of monkeys. I posted the video of this interaction in a previous entry. It was quite amazing!
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